Communication Across Conflict Lines: The Case of Ethnically Divided Cyprus

The history of ethno-national conflict on the ethnically divided Mediterranean island of Cyprus has decisively marked the communication process between the major stakeholders in the conflict, but most of all, and in a profound way, between the two Cypriot communities, namely, between Greek Cypriots (G/Cs) and Turkish Cypriots (T/Cs). The so-called Green Line, which ethnically divides the capital city of Nicosia, is not so much in itself an obstacle to communication as it is a symbol of a communication problem that goes far deeper than the physical barriers of sandbags and barbed wire. Any understanding of the complexity of the communication process across the ‘great divide’ that separates the G/C and the T/C minds must be preceded by a grasp of the major structural dynamics of the conflict. There are two interrelated parameters that define the framework of the conflict, which in turn effectively conditions the mode of communication between the two sides. These are the longstanding impact of ethnic nationalism as a worldand life-view, and the collective memory specific to the experiences of pain and injury in each community. As a rule, communication between rival, nationalistically oriented ethnic groups is always divergent, in that the respective frameworks of meaning tend to resist establishing communicative contact with each other. Nationalist worldand life-views are such that they exhibit a certain incapacity in © 2002 Journal of Peace Research, vol. 39, no. 5, 2002, pp. 581–596 Sage Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi) [0022-3433(200209)39:5; 581–596; 027797]